NUWC Division Newport engineer, financial analyst work to create an inclusive environment for women

Story by Public Affairs Workplace, Naval Undersea Warfare Middle Division Newport

NEWPORT, R.I. – Robust steerage from women leaders has played an essential function for Megan Driggers and Jaime Fastino in their careers at the Naval Undersea Warfare Centre (NUWC) Division Newport.

When Driggers, a resident of West Warwick, Rhode Island, who is an engineer in the Units, Sensors and Materials Investigate and Growth Branch of the Sensors and Sonar Systems Department, started functioning at Division Newport in June 2022, she was impressed by the passion of Dr. Lynn Antonelli, who is the specialized system supervisor of the Lasers, Sensors and Units Program.

“When I very first received in this article, I labored closely with Dr. Antonelli and she served me figure out who I was as an particular person and what my passions are,” mentioned Driggers, who is now Antonelli’s deputy specialized application manager. “She has mentored me to keep on operating down that path. Viewing how passionate she is about her investigation and what she does, and assisting her to raise it up and make a variance in the S&T neighborhood, has been remarkable.”

It has been a similar expertise for Fastino, a resident of Newport, Rhode Island, who is a economical analyst in the Small business Operations Office of the Undersea Warfare Beat Programs Division.

After completing an internship at Division Newport while earning bachelor’s degrees in accounting and finance from the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, Fastino’s partnership with her supervisor, Marie Levada, performed a significant part in her accepting a occupation at the command.

“She’s unbelievable. She’s been these kinds of a good mentor to me and a good manager,” Fastino reported. “I haven’t had that in the past at some of the other areas I have labored. That was genuinely refreshing to have that and have a different girl in leadership who is my manager just be so comprehension and thoughtful.”

Now, each and every with some working experience functioning at Division Newport, Fastino and Driggers are striving to make guaranteed the command’s new hires experience the exact same welcoming surroundings.

In addition to their every day duties at Division Newport, Fastino and Driggers serve as chair and vice-chair of Division Newport’s New Experts Community (NPN), respectively. The two also participated in Division Newport’s Women’s Record Thirty day period video, which can be seen below: https://www.dvidshub.web/movie/876819/womens-record-month.

“The New Specialist Community is all about assisting individuals, both of those new and knowledgeable, in making qualified relationships, as well as job progress by hosting experienced and social occasions,” Fastino reported. “We try to enable men and women make connections and to enable boost information sharing of complex competencies and own pursuits. We also aid new industry experts by introducing them to governing administration sources.”

Currently, the distribution listing for the NPN and Groups is about 1,100 users. The group has much more activities planned for the end of March and April. Usually, functions attract about 30 to 40 persons and an extra hundred or so if it is on Groups, Fastino said.

Any individual who has been at Division Newport for five several years or considerably less is regarded a new specialist, but the group is inclusive to the two new and skilled specialists, Fastino additional.

“Sometimes doing work in the Organization Business I come to feel like I’m just a tiny piece of the puzzle — I’m not a scientist, engineer or mathematician — but I know I matter and my job issues. All people at NUWC’s job matters, and this plan led me to choose on more management,” Fastino stated. “I got associated with the New Skilled Community here at NUWC and that has provided me these kinds of an opportunity to be a leader, to fulfill other folks, to coordinate functions for individuals to have that social-work atmosphere to sense like you belong to a nice operating modern society. That has been another fantastic possibility and anything I actually love carrying out listed here, other than my job.”

Fastino resolved to get concerned with NPN mainly because she understands how complicated it can be as new professional — significantly a woman — just starting out in their career.

“That was a single of my biggest troubles. The planet is your oyster when you are young and it’s so tough to determine out what you want to do and if it is the suitable selection,” Fastino said. “Specifically, performing for the governing administration, is this sort of a excellent selection. It offers you that great function-daily life balance, which I know I appreciate a ton, but I’m continue to given a whole lot of possibilities at the exact same time.

“We have a actually excellent, inclusive surroundings below but there have been times in my life in which simply because I’m a lady, I’m not a peer. I can not be as wise as you or prime of the class because I’m a female — specially in my subject, finance and accounting, especially, are very male-dominated. I observed that at instances, mainly because I’m a girl, persons imagined I could not be wise or I could not viewed as an equal or a peer, but at the finish of the day I’m doing the job just as really hard as all people else.”

Like Fastino, Driggers is thankful for the welcoming natural environment at Division Newport, but in the previous has experienced getting the only woman in a male-dominated subject.

She remembers when she was the only woman mathlete in her large college and only lady in her master’s software. A time early in her job, a 6-thirty day period deployment with a specific forces device in the Center East, also stood out.

“I was the only female at that time that was in the software, so I was the only female that volunteered to go above there. A ton of folks asked me beforehand, are you confident you’re ready to do this? In the earlier, there have not been many gals and they weren’t confident how it was heading to go,”

Driggers stated. “There ended up a ton of worries that I had, especially when it arrived to regard. Back again stateside, no a person has at any time questioned my intelligence before. I have designed up all this previous function practical experience and a résumé that’s identified, but when you go overseas and they are not employed to viewing ladies day to day they get started to question irrespective of whether you have the similar degree as a guy. By means of my perform, I showed them there’s no big difference.

“It finished up staying a excellent experience. Positive, a good deal of adult males ended up baffled to see a lady on a specific forces base, but it was a good practical experience. I could do just as much as any person could, so I felt like I did a terrific position and it was a very good expertise to be hand-and-hand with the warfighter to aid them and make a change.”

Family members also has been significant for both equally women of all ages. Driggers grew up in a Office of Defense (DoD) family, as her moms and dads satisfied working as electrical engineers at Lockheed Martin Corp. Both equally later transitioned to roles with the govt.

“My father grew to become a superintendent at the Naval Analysis Laboratory, and my mother went on to join the Navy as an active duty member and become a medical medical professional,” Driggers reported. “She labored for the Navy for 14 yrs, so I grew up in a STEM (science, technologies, engineering and arithmetic) domestic that was very DoD-oriented. I was generally extremely passionate about it.

“When I went to faculty I used for the Good scholarship, and the DoD compensated for my college or university and then I commenced functioning at the Naval Area Warfare Centre in Panama Town for a few decades ahead of likely again to get my master’s and transferring to NUWC Division Newport.”

For Fastino, her mother and grandmother equally provide as inspirations.

“My mother is a smaller business enterprise operator. She has worked in that discipline and owned that enterprise due to the fact I was two several years old. She nonetheless owns the enterprise to this day, and I think that is also why I went to company faculty is since of her and her teachings,” Fastino reported. “I applied to work at her firm when I was youthful, carrying out bookkeeping and studying the ropes from her.

“She’s integral to being a position product for me and my grandmother is as properly. She worked in the factories back in the day in Tumble River, Massachusetts, and experienced 7 young children that she helped increase. She finished her superior college degree at 62, which was really inspiring. She was constantly truly challenging and explained to me to work difficult, and that’s what I do.”

NUWC Newport is the oldest warfare center in the region, tracing its heritage to the Naval Torpedo Station established on Goat Island in Newport Harbor in 1869. Commanded by Capt. Chad Hennings, NUWC Newport maintains key detachments in West Palm Seashore, Florida, and Andros Island in the Bahamas, as effectively as exam facilities at Seneca Lake and Fisher’s Island, New York, Leesburg, Florida, and Dodge Pond, Connecticut.

Be part of our workforce! NUWC Division Newport, one of the 20 premier companies in Rhode Island, employs a diverse, really skilled, educated, and competent workforce. We are continually on the lookout for engineers, scientists, and other STEM professionals, as well as gifted company, finance, logistics and other guidance experts who wish to be at the forefront of undersea investigate and growth. Make sure you hook up with NUWC Division Newport Recruiting at this website- https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Dwelling/Warfare-Facilities/NUWC-Newport/Job-Prospects/ and stick to us on LinkedIn @NUWC-Newport and on Fb @NUWCNewport.